Gary Patterson just wanted a 3-1 September. Now top-10 Frogs did him one better

TCU coach Gary Patterson wanted his team to be no worse than 3-1 coming out of its first four games.

The Horned Frogs did him one better with Saturday’s 44-31 victory at Oklahoma State, which gave them a 4-0 record and a big climb in the polls as they head into a bye week.

“We understood what the first four ballgames were going to be about,” Patterson said Tuesday on the Big 12 coaches conference call with reporters. “What you want to do is you want to at least be 3-1 coming out of it. We’re fortunate we’re 4-0.”

“Now we turn ourselves to basically being 0-0 and see how many we get of these next eight once we get back into it,” he said.

Patterson said last week he turned the first four games into a mini-season. The next eight games all come without a break in between, starting with the Oct. 7 home game against West Virginia and ending with a Black Friday home game against Baylor. In between, the Frogs will visit Kansas State, host Kansas, visit Iowa State, host Texas and visit Oklahoma and Texas Tech.

TCU quarterback Kenny Hill said to prove that the Big 12 isn't 'soft' the Horned Frogs have to remain physical as they were in the 28-7 win over Arkansas on Saturday.

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“If our group can’t figure out that they’ve got eight really tough games left, then they’ll be surprised,” Patterson said.

“You know, we’re 4-0. We’ve got to try to get to 5-0,” he said. “If we get into November and we’re still like we are, then maybe you can have that conversation. But we’ve got a lot of football left to play before we get to November. We haven’t even gotten to October yet.”

Defensive end Ben Banogu’s postgame comments suggest the Frogs have gotten the message.

“People can say what they want to say, but we know what we are,” he said. “We try to be the best team every day. But you don’t just get there after a big win. You have to do that throughout the season. As long as we can keep the ball rolling and do what we do, we’ll find ourselves in that conversation.”

Banogu had a forced fumble on a sack as part of three sacks and four turnovers for TCU, the Big 12 leader in takeaways.

TCU entered the Oklahoma State game as a 13-point underdog. Patterson said that became a benefit for his team’s psyche.

“I saw we were the underdog,” Patterson said. “I saw they picked the four teams that were going to be in the playoff, and we weren’t one of them. We’re still way out in left field, and that’s OK with us. We’ve just won four ballgames.”

TCU defensive end Ben Banogu forced a fumble early to set the tone for a dominating Horned Frogs' defense that held Arkansas to 267 yards and 13 first downs.